Comes the dawn
by idioticonion
Summary: Robin turns to Barney once again. Pure speculation as to something that could happen this season. No spoilers beyond 5.15 Rabbit or Duck.


**Comes the dawn**

_It's not like you don't know how to deal with pain. You do. When Shannon hurt you, it went on and on and you managed to channel it into anger because you blamed it all on her and portrayed yourself as the victim. And maybe Shannon was just a mean person, just a selfish little girl, just a cheater, but in the end it's also true that you just weren't man enough to keep her. _

_The fear that might be true has driven you for over ten years. _

_Then you met Robin. _

_You cross the silk of your tie and flip the end over, securing it in a neat little knot. Smoothing down the cream cotton of your shirt, you make pernickety little adjustments to your cufflinks. It's a ritual of sorts; a coping strategy. _

_The pain this time seems to burn twice as bright, but you've faced pain before. This time, there's no easy way out, no reinvention, no way to express it. Robin is your friend and your other friends would never, ever understand if you turned your back on them. Your friends would never believe your explanation. In fact, they'd probably blame you. _

_Still, you're not sure how you're going to get through this again. _

*--*--* 

**Monday**

Robin says his name and it's like she's woken him up. Barney blinks a few times with a confused "Say what?"

There's a tension around her eyes as she moves her hand and slides her fingers over his. He can feel their warmth, the steady pulse of life beneath the skin and the contact feels wrong somehow, too intimate. Part of him feels wrong-footed by this, by the odd look she's giving him. He zoned out of their conversation five minutes back because her constant agonizing about Don is kind of hard to hear, but he's pretty sure she just said something weird and unexpected.

"I'm kind-of going through a dry spell," Robin says awkwardly, and suddenly he's hyper-aware of her, the press of her hip against his, her feminine scent. Suddenly she's gone from Robin-his-friend to Robin-who's-desperate.

Trouble is, he's been here before; two years ago, in fact. Trouble is, the pain of their breakup has only just begun to ease. He's knows that, in a way, he'll always be on her hook. There's a deep, dark devotion to her, in a different way than there is with Ted, Lily or Marshall. He'll always walk over hot coals for her.

And it's not like she's ever taken advantage of that. Not once. She always kept a little bit of herself at arms length, just like she did with Ted. And so Barney can rationalize, sort of, that this time it wasn't just his fault. That the breakup was mutual, the pain is just a by-product and that time will be a great healer.

Yadda yadda.

It hasn't been easy, but he's gotten through it. Kind of. He's still getting through it.

Then Robin lifts her hand and touches his cheek, looking at him curiously. "You wanna go back to your place?" she asks.

He swallows, not entirely sure that she isn't joking. Part of him, a very physical part, enjoys the sensation of her touching him and wants her to continue exploring him, wants her fingers to fall on to his throat, to pull at his tie, just like she did their first time.

Instead his lips quirk into a smile, his chest tightening with uncertainty. His brain tells him that this can't possibly be. Robin's way too smart for relapse sex.

But she laughs, as if she's reading his mind, and she says, "C'mon dude. I'm sitting here offering you a no-strings-attached night with a super hot chick and you're looking at me like I've slipped poison in your scotch. What gives?"

Her confident words are just a little too aggressive, just a little too laced with nerves. It's that which makes him consider her proposal, at least for a second. But there's a part of him, the part that was Shannon-hurt, which is a little too wise.

"Robin," he says. "We broke up. It's never gonna be just sex."

She frowns and he finds it hard to keep up with her reactions, her emotions. She stares at him for a second, like she's making a demand, then she looks away, face flushing with humiliation.

He wonders just how much she's had to drink tonight and just what stuff Don's been putting her through. He wonders why Robin hasn't nailed the guy already. Maybe she has and that's the problem?

Then Robin rubs her eyes. "Sorry," she says. "Stupid. Sorry." Just single words, staccato against the general hubbub of the bar. If it wasn't just the two of them, maybe this situation would never have occurred. "I have to go to work in a couple of hours." She mumbles, half rising from the table. "I'm just-"

He hurt her, he can see that. She's battling tears and shame and it's crazy but he's responsible.

So he reaches out for her hand. What choice does he have?

*--*--*

_You tried to justify this. You told yourself that you're unable, unwilling, to say no to her. You told yourself there's no difference between her and any other woman, while at the same time losing yourself in her again. You'd given up everything of yourself for her, and you'd do it again, even though you know that the two of you are doomed. You're still hopelessly in love with her. _

_So… what...?_

_You know you can never have her, not really, but there she was, giving herself up to you, pushing her fingers through your hair with a kind of savage demand. _

_You just couldn't say no. _

*--*--*

Robin's leaning over him, in the semi-darkness, her fingers splayed out across his stomach. She shifts across him, resting on her elbows and her hair falls over his face in a soft curtain. He can't see her, but he knows that her mouth is set in a tight line of concentration.

When she kisses him there's a long moment, a pause as her tongue brushes across his bottom lip, before she starts moving, sliding up and down his body. He wonders at the hesitation, and she murmurs something that sounds like "I missed you." His heart, which had been shrivelled and dry in his chest, it expands in her warm glow, it grows again, with every press of her lips against his. All thoughts of protest, all doubt, it just evaporates in the path of this incredibly joyous, wordless hope he experiences. Even before his hands move to her waist, even before her bare breasts brush against his chest, even before he penetrates her, he already feels like they're connected. Or reconnected.

The relief from the pain of losing her is immediate and so profound that he wonders how he survived it.

And she smiles against his mouth. Her breath is warm, her lips are hungry where they drag across his six o'clock stubble, where they map out the contours of his collar-bone, the muscle across his shoulders.

He thrusts up into her, a blunt force that he knows she loves. It's the one thing that he was always good at, knowing where to touch her, how to open her up, exactly where to press and where to tease.

She makes a familiar, helpless sound as she circles her hips. She rears up above him, back arching to force him deeper into her and her fingers squeeze his bicep, fierce and almost angry.

He can't see her eyes. It's easier to win back control when he can't see her eyes but he doesn't want to feel remote from her right now. Whatever Robin wants, whatever she needs from him, he has to be able to see her right now.

He rocks her to one side, catches her weight and rolls them over so that she lands heavily on her back, him now on top of her. The tips of his fingers dig into her thighs, pinning her to the bed.

Finally he can see her, the vulnerability in her. She tries to look away but he sees her break.

There's a long, slow ache inside and he fucks her through it, like he's climbing a mountain and he's not sure when he's reached the top. When his release comes, pulsing and quick, he's not sure that he's ready.

After, they lay side by side, and she gives him a few, stuttering words, about how she'll maybe see him at the bar tonight, or even for breakfast if he wants to meet her.

Maybe this time they can make it, by remembering they were friends first, then lovers? Barney lies awake for long hours after she leaves for work and, when the sun rises, for the first time in months he feels something good, something happy.

*--*--*

_You know about pain. But when she came into the bar on Don's arm the next night, smiling and giddy and in love, the world opened up under your feet. You had no defence against the emotions that crashed through you, dragged you under and claimed your soul. You didn't even hate her, couldn't, because you realised that she'd been clear that your one night with her was no-strings-attached, that it was just sex. All the others cheered her on, popped the champagne and drank her health. _

_And because you are who you are, you weren't even the first one to leave their impromptu engagement party. You were the last._

_And later, you almost broke your fist against a wall in the back alley behind your building. _

*--*--*

**Thursday**

It's eight o'clock at night. The heating has long been powered down and the guards have left. Luckily Barney has a security key, and can work on long after the GNB building has mostly faded into eerie silence.

His eyes hurt, his head feels heavy. He's been working every hour he can stay awake, powering through his despair, waiting patiently for it to fade. But it still scares him.

This depth of emotion, if he lets it fester, who know how it might manifest? There are a list of triggers and vices he could choose from, a menu of ways to drown out the pain. Gambling, sex, booze…

But he just doesn't want to feel like this any more because he has no right. He's hurt so many women, he knows what it's like to be on the other side of this equation.

There's a soft knock at his office door.

"You okay?" A voice says, hesitently.

He looks up and it takes a few moments for his eyes to adjust. Lily smiles gently and crosses the grey void to his large, low couch.

"I knew something was wrong, so I asked Robin," Lily said, patting the couch beside her. "But I don't think she could really talk to me in front of Don."

He's reminded of a time, so many years ago, when he sat on his brother's couch, tears running down his cheeks in waves. It helped for an hour or two, but really it just anesthetised him from the loss of Shannon. It didn't help him heal.

And even hearing Don's name makes him wince. Barney knows that Lily doesn't intend to be insensitive but it just goes to show how little she understands what's really going on with him.

So he shakes his head. "Not this time Lil."

Lily tries her stern look of reprimand, then that other expression, the pleading one that was designed to make him confess all his sins. She ruins the effect by clicking her tongue impatiently.

"Not this time," Barney repeats. "Soon, maybe. But not right now. I can't-" His voice breaks, surprising him. He thought he had more control than that. "It's complicated."

Lily just smiles sadly and replies "It always is, honey. It always is."

*--*--*

_You feel stupid, in a way. Because Robin was scared and lost and you knew that. And you were so pathetically grateful that she'd turned to you again, that you were willing to do anything, willing to lean on her and open yourself up for her. _

_And you hate Lily for it, but in the end you know she's right. It's always complicated, when you get your heart broken. It always takes a while to force the pieces to back together long enough to mend. _

_So you knot your tie and you fix your cufflinks and you find the strength to watch the sunrise over Manhattan. _

_And you try your very best to endure. _


End file.
